Chapter Eleven

Kent

I woke up to a cold nose on my cheek and couldn’t help but giggle. It was Pearly the Adorable, as I now thought of them in my head because cuteness was their super power. I reached over and gave them a scratch behind their ears the way they loved.

“What are you doing here, silly dog? You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

Then came the kiss—not the one from Barrett that I longed for, but a sweet one right on my chin from the dog.

“Do you need to go out? Is that why you are so insistent?”

I rolled over to face Barrett but discovered I was alone in bed. He was already up. I had no idea what time it was, but it was definitely light out and time to get up.

“All right. Let’s go outside.”

I climbed out of bed, threw on my clothes and padded out of the room, Pearl the Adorable following.

I’d barely stepped out of the room when the scent of bacon tickled my nose. “I see your daddy’s up and cooking the good stuff. Why are you bugging me when you could be getting bacon?”

Barrett came out of the kitchen, spatula in hand. “Because Pearly knows they’re not getting any until we’re done eating.”

Barrett crossed the room in pajama pants slung low on his hips and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Did you have a furry wake-up call?”

“I did. But as alarm clocks go, it’s by far the cutest I’ve ever had. I thought they had to go out.”

“No, they just wanted bacon. But Pearly came up short in the bacon department and opted for snuggles.”

I knelt down and rubbed my nose against theirs the way they liked. “Next time, just sleep, silly one.”

“Breakfast will be ready in about ten minutes.” He headed back toward the kitchen, “Unless I burn it by being distracted by my sexy neighbor, that is.”

I wanted to offer to help, but I really needed to brush my teeth. I grabbed my keys. “I’ll be right back.”

Out the door I went and over to my place across the driveway. I hated leaving, even for a few short minutes, but I was worried my morning breath would get to him, and I craved a kiss or two—or a leisurely morning of kissing. I wasn’t picky.

Once home, I took the world’s quickest shower, threw on fresh clothes, and headed back over.

I’d never dated someone who lived so close before—not even in college. Back then, my dates had always been in other dorms or even off-campus. Here, I was just crossing the driveway. It was kind of nice.

When I came back, I knocked and then walked in. “I’m here for kitchen duty.”

“It’s all ready for us to eat,” he said. “How about eating duty?”

“I’m here for eating duty.” I winked.

He’d made eggs, pancakes, bacon—typical morning fare—along with coffee.

“You didn’t need to do all this.”

“No, I didn’t. But I wanted to.” He set a plate in front of me.

I picked up a piece of bacon and took a bite. Crispy, just the way I loved it. “This is so good. Thank you.”

“Breakfast is my specialty. Do you have plans for the day? I thought maybe we could spend it together.”

“I’d love that. I don’t really have plans plans, but I was thinking of going to the Christmas tree store.”

“There’s a Christmas tree store?”

“Sort of. That’s what I call it. It’s that gift shop over on Maple. At Christmastime, it’s filled with tons of different kinds of Christmas trees and ornaments from around the world. They still have their normal stuff, but mostly it’s that.” It would be a thousand times more fun if I had Barrett with me.

“Yeah, that sounds great. My only idea was doing something with you. This is perfect.”

We finished up breakfast, and this time I drove. We found street parking and walked in together. The store was beautiful, just like always. This year, they’d decorated the trees by color, not nationality. It turned each of them into little treasure hunts. You never knew what kind of ornament you’d find.

I picked up a few I wanted to take home, and Barrett did as well. We found a couple of gifts, too. It was the perfect pre-Christmas excursion—until I rounded a corner into the clearance section and nearly ran into Thomas.

“Hello.” He looked me up and down, the way he used to when we were together. Very much not how a married man should be looking at another individual.

“Hi.” I half-waved, not really wanting to talk to him and wishing I had stayed with Barrett instead of looking for a bargain. He didn’t affect me the way he would’ve even two months ago, but that didn’t mean I liked the guy.

“You look well.” Did he think I wanted to have a conversation with him? I didn’t.

“Same.” I hoped my clipped response would let him know I wasn’t interested in talking, but he rolled right on.

“I’m sorry about last year. It was a mistake. I should have been there with you.” Thomas held up his ringless hand. He had to be shitting me. Did he think I would want him back? It sucked that his marriage was bad enough he took his ring off, or worse if he was no longer married at all. But he’d made his bed—or unmade it in this case. It served him right.

That’s when Barrett came up behind me, so close I only needed a fraction of a step back to be touching him.

“Did you find anything good?” He moved to my side and kissed my cheek.

It wasn’t a possessive kiss—it was protective. It was his way of letting me know and Thomas as well that he was there with and for me. He might not have known this was Thomas or what was going on, but he understood it wasn’t good and that I was struggling. Although I was proud of myself for my response both inside and out.

“I haven’t really gotten to look yet. This is Thomas.”

“Oh.” Barrett looked him up and down. “I guess choices were made.” And, with that, he took my hand in his. I didn’t fully understand what he meant, but Thomas was visibly uncomfortable, and that was enough for me. “Let’s go look through some clearance.”

He whisked me around Thomas and we dug through the box of last year’s ornaments, finding one that matched a figure in my snow globe. After paying, we headed out.

I felt like I could finally draw a deep breath when we got in the car.

“Thank you for in there. That was…I wasn’t expecting to see him.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that. That was the excuse of a daddy who doesn’t know how to daddy.”

I hadn’t kept my past from Barrett, but we hadn’t talked about it in depth. Spending too much time talking about an ex never worked well. Barrett knew it was a big deal that I trusted him, but I didn’t think he understood just how big. It shouldn’t have come as easy as it did, but with him, everything felt that way. Almost too easy. But also right.

“Yeah, he tried to apologize or whatever. I’m not angry with him. I’m just not part of his life anymore, and he’ll never be part of mine. It caught me off guard, given the time of year.”

“Well, if you ever want to talk about it, we can.” He gave my thigh a squeeze.

“You are the sweetest. But you know what I want to talk about right now?” I might take him up on it sometime, but today was not that day.

“No, what?”

“I heard someone in the Christmas tree store talking about a cookie walk at the church in the center of town—the one with all the bells. Should we see if they still have cookies?”

“Oh, you had me at cookies.”

It wasn’t hard to find the church. The parking lot was packed. We walked in and went through the cookie walk with our tins, filling them to the brim. We were going to have to freeze some—no one could eat as many cookies as we bought—but each one looked better than the last. How could we leave it there?

There was something about cookies in a fancy Christmas tin with a daddy that made everything right in the world.